Chapter Thirty-Six Poland

Chapter Thirty-Six
Poland

We spent the rest of the day of arrival in Warsaw mostly resting up from the long flight. The next day we started off on a five-day pre-convention tour of Poland by having an interesting breakfast. The hotel served us a sweet roll, roll & jelly, cold ham and coke in a glass bottle. After breakfast our four bus tour group of Witnesses headed for Lublin a town in the southeast of Poland. On the day of our arrival about four or five young local boys met our buses and were selling picture post cards and sold quite a few to our group. The next morning the group of boys selling post cards more than doubled. The evening of our first day in Lublin we had a nice diner in a local restaurant with a couple we knew from the Pasadena area. We had found out the day before when we were loading on to the buses that they were on the same tour with us. After our diner we had free time to walk around in Lublin. Many Polish people just stared at Ann. They were not used to seeing African-Americans. Once we were back at the hotel we had coffee and dessert. For two cups of coffee and two torts including tip it costs us thirty to forty cents. When we exchanged our currency for the local Polish zloty we felt like the rich and famous. In fact early on following the suggested guidelines we were tipping the usual 10% to 15%, but later were told not to tip so much because that was as much as many would make in a week and they weren’t coming back to work the next day.

The second day in Lublin we went just outside the town to Mydanek which had been a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Our first look at Mydanek was of a green meadow like area, very serene and peaceful. It was difficult to imagine the atrocities and horror that went on there. We found out that over 360,000 people of 15 nationalities had been confined there and many executed in the gas chambers. The prisoners living quarters no longer exist, but the military quarters, the gas chambers and the crematorium are still there as reminders. Walking through the room where the masses took showers which calmed the hysteria to some degree is a haunting experience. And then to walk into the actual gas chambers and sense the pain and suffering that occurred there was even more disturbing. We found out that originally they did not use Zyklon B pellets but rather built wood fires, exhausting the smoke and monoxide gas into the rooms which must have been a slow and painful death. The military barracks have been turned into museums and in one they have on display a large number of leather shoes, boots, suitcases and briefcases collected from the prisoners. What was on display is a very small percent of the total collected and recycled for German use. Many of the suitcases had names and dates marked on them. It’s an image you don’t forget.

Before leaving Lublin we visited the local Kingdom Hall where a group of the younger sisters had prepared punch and pastries for us. Even though we had a language barrier with the aid of our hands we were able to communicate and have a delightful time. Before going into the hall Ann and I were standing outside greeting the local brothers and sisters. One sister came up to Ann and excitedly exclaimed “Afrika”. Unfortunately, we had to dampen her excitement by telling her we were from California.

On our way from Lublin to Krakow we stopped in Sandomerz for lunch. A nice smaller town with a town hall built in the 14th century. In Krakow we found out our hotel had overbooked and there was no room for us. While waiting in the lobby we met a group of Americans that turned out to be the choir from the Lake Ave. Congregational church in Pasadena. They were on an European tour. Since we could not stay at the hotel they were able to put us in the dormitories of a local university which was closed for the summer. The accommodations were simple but nice; however, since the university had closed for the summer the boilers had been turned off and we didn’t have any hot water. Cold showers are stimulating but you don’t stay in them very long. While on our way to dinner on campus we met a group of French brothers and sisters as well as a group of Italians who had been at an earlier convention in Poznan.

While in Krakow we went to the Old Town Market square. Most of Old Town had been built in the 13th Century. There was a group of musicians playing in the square and when they saw us they started playing “Yankee Doodle Dandy”. I guess American tourists are easily identifiable. We also went to the castle on Wawel Hill where the former kings lived and were crowned at the cathedral located with the castle. The former Pope John Paul II served as a cardinal at the cathedral. Catholicism is not only the predominant religion but most Poles are catholic.

On our way from Krakow to Katowice we went to Zakopane a mountain resort town in the Tartar mountains. It was a beautiful place. We were to take a cable car ride up to the top of the mountains but the winds were too high. Ann was not disappointed. We saw a group of gypsies performing on the street playing violins and other instruments.

From Katowice we took a day trip over to Oswiecim (Auswitz). In many ways it was like Maydanek except that the Germans had taken a former Polish Army base with its brick buildings and turned it into a concentration camp. Over the main gate there was an iron work sign which said “Arbeit Mach Frei” which means “Work makes free”. It was the Nazi’s way of trying to create a false sense of hope. In one barrack there was a display of the different patches used to designate the type of prisoners in the camp. Among the patches was the purple triangle used to designate “Bible Student” which was what Jehovah Witnesses were know as then.

The next day we headed back to Warsaw and the convention. The convention was held in a sports stadium and seating was divided in to sections for the different languages. There would be section for Polish and next to that a section for English and then another Polish section. I believe there were accommodations for fifteen languages. They had directional sound speakers for each section and when they would translate the program into English we didn’t really hear the other languages. On our first day at the convention we were trying to follow along a portion of the program which was not translated from Polish and a voice came over our shoulders saying “First Peter – chapter 3...” and so we met Wojtek and Margosza. A couple of Polish witnesses that had sat in our section. We developed a friendship and they sat with us each day. One day they brought Margosza’s father, not a witness, and he couldn’t take his eyes off of Ann. I don’t know if he was so taken with her beauty or the fact that she was African-American. Maybe a little of both. We spent time with Wojtek and Margosza during our free time, and for a while after the convention we kept in touch by mail. The baptism ceremony was quite impressive. They had the baptismal candidates seated on the sports field in front of the speakers’ platform. They had three baptismal pools at both ends of the stadium. First to come out for the baptism were the brothers who would perform the baptism, a group of nurses and other medical personnel. Then the candidates started coming out, brothers at one end and the sisters at the other end. They came out, and they came out and they kept coming out. I believe over 3000 were baptized that day. At one point the sisters were being baptized at both ends. At the conclusion of the convention nobody wanted to leave. There was continuous applause and handkerchief waving.

The day we were to leave Poland Wojtek came by the hotel to say goodbye. It was time to say goodbye to some of our tour group friends who were either going on to a different post-convention tour or home. We were heading to Great Britain. I got so verbose on Poland that I’ll go into London and the rest of the British Isles in the next chapter.